Gingrich told the Associated Press that the government's performance "puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years," and urged Bush to tap former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) to take over the response.

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'..."

imagine that. the democratic mayor and the democratic governor failed to get people out, in essence, killing them. where are the vitriolic comments for them?

Whether Rudy is tapped for the post depends first on whether he wants it, and secondly whether Bush wants to give Rudy an opportunity to jump ahead of the rest of the republican field for the 2008 nomination. The only possible contender that Bush would seem to have any allegiance to is Cheney.

What is the big electoral contest on the horizon? Defeating or electing Hillary, of course. Nationally, a changeover in the congress isn't as realistic to most people.

Giuliani, these days, is most frequently brought up as a leading contender for the white house. IF he were chosen to be a figurehead in New Orleans, it would appear, to many, that he was partly because of that factor. He's an outsider in many ways, and this is an area that likes democrats.

It's too late for him to do much good now. Things are generally well in hand. Perhaps nominating, oh, I don't know, Nagil, to lead the efforts in New Orleans, would be more realistic. Yeah, I know he has been a let down in some respects, but I don't think that's very relevant now.

Busses have to have drivers for them to work. My guess is that the school bus drivers--who are not emergency workers--evacuated New Orleans with their families the minute the area's schools closed in preparation for Katrina.

Buses are easy to drive. That kid managed to get his to houston with 100 people. Surely 1 out of 100, and probably 1 out of 5 people could drive this thing. Just assign that many to each bus, pull the drivers over and tell them to follow in line, some basic safety rules and any special bus operating instructions. They could have been on the road rather quickly.

And regarding the hired drivers, well, the busses were in Nagil's prewritten evacuation plan. That he probably never read, but it was there anyway. he should have seen to his employees knowing where to be instead of laughing his own written solution off and demanding a fleet of greyhounds that weren't sitting in his city waiting to be flooded like his busses.

So you are saying that the mayor of New Orleans should have grabbed strangers off the street--legally unqualified drivers, handed them city buses, given them a few dozen people to control, all on the suspicion that it might hit and cause a disaster? Talk about legal liability...

Even if he did all of this, where would he send the buses? Communities in the region would try to absorb 100,000 refugees at local government expense before the hurricane hit.

Newt needs to knock Rudy down to size before 2008 if he hopes to run for president. He also knows that Rudy will get stuck if he grabs the New Orleans tarbaby. Perhaps Rudy will lose some luster if he is just seen to be avoiding the assignment. Newt is cagey. Anyway, the whole thing is too expensive. See I'm joining the left